


chewed up lightning

by CrayfishCoffee



Series: pressed between pages [3]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anger, Anger Management, Character Study, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Violence, Modern AU, Non-Graphic Violence, Nonbinary Character, its super not explicit and incredibly brief but its there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 19:50:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18723805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrayfishCoffee/pseuds/CrayfishCoffee
Summary: The first time it happens, she’s six years old and some boy pushes her off the swings.That’s when her vision goes red.In which mindfulness doesn't always solve everything.





	chewed up lightning

**Author's Note:**

> So I started playing a barbarian recently, and it got me thinking how rages would potentially translate into modern AUs.  
> So I wrote a thing.

The first time it happens, she’s six years old and some boy pushes her off the swings.

In her defense, it’s completely unprovoked. She’s only using one of the two spots available on the swingset, not talking to anyone and minding her own business. Even with her tiny body, she manages to propel herself up higher and higher, reveling in that split second where it feels as if she’s suspended while the sky takes up her entire field of vision, before her stomach is left behind as she swings back down to earth. Back and forth. Back and forth. Her mind goes blank with the motion of it, her legs kicking out on autopilot to keep her momentum.

It’s on a downswing when she feels her world get punched out of its orbit, and the next thing she knows she’s impacting hard into the pebble foundation of the playground. She’s breathing hard, jaw clenched, and she can hear some brat laughing behind her.

That’s when her vision goes red.

She doesn’t know how much time passed before slowly her senses come back to her, and the red fades into the corners of her vision. She’s got whatever-the-fuck-kid pinned down to the ground, both fists wailing on him. It takes her a moment to come back to herself. She doesn’t stop.

He’s crying.

She notices a chunk of hair clenched tight in her right fist, and a bald patch on the back of this kid’s head.

“Yasha stop that!” then she’s being lifted off him by the teacher, and she goes limp like a baby kitten.

Later she is strongly urged (read: sat down and forced) to write an apology letter to him, which she is asked (escorted) to deliver by hand. She says she is very sorry, and promises she will not do it again. It’s a total lie like most mandated apologies are, but with the tiniest sliver of truth. On her part she never touches him again. But it’s not the last time she does it.

 

\----

 

The thing is, usually Yasha would describe herself as the kind of person who can shrug things off easily. She can put up with a lot, and she doesn’t really find it all that difficult to roll her eyes and that’s that. But every so often, something happens or someone will say something that will catch into her skin the wrong way. It will lock her jaw tight, make her blood run hot, and flood her vision with an ugly red where she doesn’t know what’s happening until someone’s on the ground.

Her rages doesn’t happen everyday. But it happens enough that she gets a reputation, and it goes bad enough when it does that she sees the inside of juvenile detention more than once. 

In her teen years she picks up distressed jeans, not the pre-torn kind you have to pay extra money for, but the kind you get from skidding on asphalt or getting the material stuck on a sharp edge of metal fencing. She learns that she’s no good with eyeliner, so she settles for smearing black around her eyes in a look that could be viewed as intentional if you squint the right way. It makes her pale eyes pop, and she thinks it makes her look dangerous when she glances at herself in the mirror.

Upon being released from juvie, she gets “assigned” anger management at some local group, but her foster parents never take her and no one ever bothers to actually check if she goes – so she doesn’t. She almost does, one day. Yasha walks all the way to the community center and stares at the front door as she’s hit with a an overwhelming feeling of discomfort under her skin. She’s not stupid. She knows she has a problem and should probably be getting some sort of help for it. But imagining sitting in uncomfortable fold-out chairs in a circle in some beige colored room, hearing strangers talk about their feelings or whatever and then expected to  _ share her own _ .

No.

Instead, she ends up smoking next to a nearby creek and throwing shale rock against each other to see how they break.

Yasha turns eighteen, breaks a man’s arm, and wonders how long it’s going to take before she ends up having a stint in a real prison.

 

\----

 

Yasha does end up seeing the inside of prison, but not for very long.

It’s in the first week after being released that she meets a girl with a smile like moonlight and eyes like raw charcoal. It’s the longest she goes without incident – all she can feel is love, love, love.

Zuala dies, and Yasha doesn’t feel anything for a long time.

 

\----

 

Grieving for Zuala changes something about her anger.

It happens so suddenly, like a piece of white-hot metal being plunged into water, that she doesn’t notice the sharp edge the cold shock had given it till the steam clears away. Before it felt like she would boil over, but now it feels cooler, like a storm rolling under her skin, but still lightning she can bottle.

It’s more … controlled. 

Concentrated.

So she looks at her dwindling funds, her empty fridge, and gets a job as a bouncer. She finds a man named Gustav who overlooks her criminal record, after a thorough in-person interview. At first the constant stream of patrons unnerves her a little bit. Correction: the crowds of patrons unnerves her a great bit. Yasha has never considered herself a people person, and the first Saturday shift she covers has her collapsing home absolutely exhausted just from the exposure to the pure concentrated  _ socialization _ . Eventually, though, she manages to build up some basic tolerance, which turns into inoculation. She becomes better at reading people’s lips over the blasting music, and politely shutting down the drunken flirting that every so often comes her way. 

Luckily it doesn’t happen too frequently. After closing down after a particularly eventful night, Gustav laughs at the no less than three separate butches that propositioned her back to their place. He says she makes for a great silent bouncer because of the potent if-you-start-shit-I-can-shut-it-down-hard stoicism she apparently projects, but even that can’t cancel out the allure of her well-endowed arms.

She actually doesn’t have to shut shit down very often. She’s really only had to throw someone out a couple times, but damn if those few times aren’t the most gratifying. Lifting up assholes by the scruff of their jacket and hauling them like a sack of potatoes is a pleasure she wishes she were privy to more often. 

Like, she knows it’s really a good thing she’s only had to go hands-on a few times. It means the bar has good patrons and she’s doing her job. But on the other hand, every so often she will get a little bit antsy, and some nights she catches herself on extra guard for any opportunity to throw her weight around. It’s not really that’s she’s looking for a fight. It was never about looking for a fight.

The lightning she keeps in a bottle where her heart should be just gets a little more frenetic every once in a while, leaving an itch under her skin.

She closes her eyes, and visualizes storm clouds in her mind. Breathe in, the clouds rolling in. Breathe out, the storm rolling out. In, clouds arriving. Out, storm leaving. Rinse, wash and repeat. Be mindful, and take stock of your body.

At least, in theory. Yasha has never been good at visualizing things in her head, so when she tries to think up a storm, all she really gets is the weird darkness behind her eyelids.

So she gets a gym membership.

 

\----

 

It’s enough, for a time. It’s enough until it isn’t. Until the lightning hits a perfect weak spot in the glass, and the bottle shatters. 

Yasha doesn’t even remember exactly what he said. She’s just outside the bar entrance with Mollymauk, getting some fresh air from the stuffy crowd inside. The winter air is biting, and she’s lending Molly her leather jacket since they forgot to bring one. She doesn’t even remember whether the asshole was coming in, heading out, or just passing by, but she remembers him focusing in on Molly and–

He says  _ something _ at them. He spits out  _ something _ and he’s coming in closer to them and his posture screams  _ wrong _ and he’s got a couple inches on Molly and he’s just  _ shoving  _ his finger into their chest and–

The next thing she knows she feels her legs squeezing down on something, and her fist colliding with something that crunches, but it all feels so far away like it’s some sort of hazy dream.

And then she tastes blood.

She’s slammed back into her body as her fist connects again painfully. Hands are gripped tight onto her shoulder and shaking, and she instinctively turns her head up in that direction. When the red slowly fades into her periphery, the first thing Yasha sees is the matching crimson gaze of Molly. The deafening rush of adrenaline still drowns out any sound, so she can’t hear what they’re saying, but she watches their bright painted lips move. The sound catches up half a second after she puts together what they’re mouthing:

“Yasha stop it!”

Molly looks–

Molly looks scared. Molly looks scared and their nails are digging into her shoulder and they’re looking panicked right. At. Her.

Her knuckles feel like they’re on fire. When she looks down, she finds herself pinning the shithead’s arms to his sides with her legs, one hand bunching his shirt in a fist pressed into his windpipe. One eye is already swelling up and turning an ugly grey-yellow. She’s pretty sure his nose was already crooked so it’s hard to separate her handiwork from the original, but there’s blood streaming from his slanted nostrils all the same.

“Yasha. Stop.”

Slowly, she lowers her arm still raised in the air. 

The adrenaline is now collecting it’s due, and she feels herself shaking as she lets herself be pulled off him by Molly. She doesn’t let her eyes leave the man she’s left sprawled on the concrete until Molly leads her back inside. 

 

\----

 

Gustav is forced to consider firing her. She doesn’t come back to work for over a week. In that time everyone she knows holds their breath in anxious dread, but by some miracle she never received any notification the guy is pressing charges.

Nonetheless, Gustav still is obligated to consider letting her go, but easily allows himself to be convinced otherwise. It’s made much easier since no charges are officially being bought up, coupled with the fact several people can vouch she wasn’t drunk, that she was provoked, and the obvious regret Yasha showed after the incident. 

So Yasha gets to return to work. Word gets around fast, and she is definitely given a wider birth than usual upon her return. But she also gets a few respectful nods, which she has a lot of mixed feelings about.

Upon arriving home the night of the incident, Yasha still hasn’t looked at Molly. Not when they leed her back into the club, or the walk back, or unlocking the door to the apartment. Yasha makes a beeline towards their saggy couch, and lets herself fall down into it, elbows resting on her knees as she bends over. With her head hung low, her curtain of hair gratefully helps block the line of sight to the kitchen where she hears Molly quietly moving around. Instead she inspects the broken skin over her knuckles, which she probably busted on the man’s cheekbone. Her mouth is still full of copper from her now obviously busted lip. 

“Here…” She hears the telltale sound of an ice bag, and wordlessly takes it without lifting her head, placing it gingerly over where the pain is worst.

“Yasha…” She scrunches her eyes closed. She can’t. Her heart still beats loud in her ears.

"Yasha will you please just look at me.” She can tell Molly’s trying to keep their voice deceptively calm, but without looking up she knows they’re running their fingers through their hair, which they’re happily growing out, wearing her gloves. 

But she can’t. She can’t look up and see that scared look on their face again. Not directed at her. Not because of her. She can’t look up because she can’t stand to think that Mollymauk is now  _ afraid of her _ .

“Yasha,  _ please _ .” The strained desperation that hooks into the end of the word finally forces Yasha’s head up. She looks them in the eye, and the concern she finds there is the last strike needed against the wall keeping back the great wave of exhaustion. Mollymauk shifts from foot to foot, and gingerly reaches out a hand before twitches it back just short of her shoulder. And there’s just something about that aborted motion that makes her throat go tight. Mollymauk who practically clings to her at any given moment – afraid to even touch her. “Are you– are you ok?”

It’s funny in an unfunny way, Molly asking if  _ she’s _ ok. It almost makes her want to laugh, if she thought she was capable of laughing right now. 

She’s so tired.

“I’m sorry if I … scared you.” It comes out so quiet in the silent apartment, but Yasha doesn’t think she can go any louder with her guilt-ridden throat.

Mollymauk puts on a brave crooked grin, and waves a hand in the air, “As if you could ever scare me.”

The heaviness in her bones makes Yasha too tired to play along with their usual act, so when Mollymauk sees her weary gaze, some of it drains from the corners of their mouth, leaving behind a more genuine line to their brow.

“I’m serious Yasha. You’ve never made me feel like I’ve ever been in any danger, and I don’t think you can start now. Now don’t get me wrong, did you scare me? Nah. But were you scary?” Molly blows out their cheeks in a performative puff of air, “Oh fuck yeah.”

At the almost-smile Yasha leaves peaking from around the ice bag, something relaxes in the posture of Mollymauk’s spine, and they make their way back into the kitchen. Yasha unfolds herself into the couch, letting her head rest up against the back of it, letting gravity help keep the ice on her lip. She lets her eyes close again, but she can hear the sound of the teapot being filled with water and set on the stove. Mugs are set on the counter, and a couple more pantry doors are open and closed before she hears his footsteps coming back. The couch dips on her right side, and she hears the plastic pop of the first aid kit being opened. 

“Can I?” She peeks an eye open to see their hand hesitating above her bloody one. 

At her slight nod, they gently take her hand into their lap. They make a small noise of apology while putting the cotton ball to her knuckles, but the disinfectant is something she’s experienced countless times before, so she doesn’t even react. Next they delicately wrap her hand with gauze, in a figuration she knows is less-than-optimal but wouldn’t think to correct them on. The kettle starts to whistle while Molly is putting away the materials, so they plop the kit onto the coffee table to fix their mugs. 

They place her cup on the table in front of her, while curling up around theirs with their back against the arm of the couch. The familiar way they dig their toes underneath her thigh immediately lets up the tightness in her throat, and she doesn’t even realize how strained her breathing was until it comes back to her. 

They sit in silence like that for a while, broken up by the intermittent sound of Molly sipping their tea. She can tell they want to say something. It takes a couple more sips for it to come out.

“So um,” they tap their nails delicately along the side of the mug, “I think … it might be a good idea if you maybe went back to that group again. If you think that sounds like a good idea.”

It probably is a good idea. She’ll think on it tomorrow.

Because right now she doesn’t realize she’s falling asleep, until her hand slides off her face taking the ice bag with it.

 

\----

 

A stipulation of her parol was mandated meetings at an anger management group – the kind of “mandated” that actually meant people checking if she went, so she couldn’t skip. 

The room indeed ended up having beige walls, and the fold-out chairs are just as uncomfortable as she had imagined as a teen. But, she actually found it to be more helpful than she was expecting. Some of it was less enlightening, like the visualization exercises and the talking portion. Others made much more sense: the more actionable techniques Yasha felt she had a more concrete understanding of.

One day the group therapist had handed out some small notebooks, encouraging the members to keep “anger journals.” They were supposed to write down and document entries after having an outburst, of how they felt building up to the incident, during, and after.

Problem was, whenever Yasha was faced by the nicely ruled, empty pages, she couldn’t ever really figure out what she was supposed to put down. A lot of her entries ended up being some variation of:

I was ok. Then I got angry. Really Angry. Then I was ok.

Yasha gave up on her anger diary pretty quickly. Instead, she found a different use for the journal. While they were having a session on the grass during one of the first days of spring, the instructor gave them time to update their anger journals. Like always, Yasha just stared at the page, mostly just feeling lost. Her gaze slid to the right, at the fresh grass blades peeking up through the dirt. 

To her right, was a perfect blooming dandelion. She reached out, and neatly plucked it from the base of the stem. Gently, she placed it down in between some random pages, and pressed her journal shut.

**Author's Note:**

> black me out - against me!
> 
> [tumblr](http://crayfishcoffee.tumblr.com/) \- [twitter](https://twitter.com/crayfishcoffee)


End file.
